Thai Budget Carriers Want To Move Back To Don Muang

[george]

Thai budget carriers want to move back to Don Muang

BANGKOK: -- Low-cost carriers said Wednesday they want to move their operations back to Bangkok's old airport, citing increased costs at the capital's new international airport.

"The new airport is getting busy with more traffic, while our operation costs are rising," said Tassapon Bijleveld, chief executive officer of budget airline Thai Air Asia.

"Consequently, every low-cost airline would like to discuss the possibility with airport officials of moving back to Don Muang," he told AFP.

The new three-billion-dollar Suvarnabhumi airport officially opened to much fanfare less than three weeks ago, replacing the creaking Don Muang airport.

Suvarnabhumi, or "golden land", airport is expected to handle 38 million passengers in its first year, rising to 45 million passengers per year in the future.

Airport officials have already announced plans to build a 16-million-dollar terminal to cater to budget carriers within 16 months. They are still debating possible uses for decades-old Don Muang airport.

"We have to listen to the reasons why low cost airlines want to move back to Don Muang, but so far they have not started official discussions about this issue," Chaisak Angkasuwan, director general of the government's aviation department, told AFP.

"The final decision will be based on the economic value if we operate two separate airports -- Don Muang and Suvarnabhumi -- at the same time."

Chaisak recently urged Airports of Thailand (AOT), which operates Suvarnabhumi, to think about expanding the new airport in response to an expected jump in traffic over the next five years.

AOT president Chotisak Asapaviriya said he did not understand why the budget airlines wanted to move back to Don Muang, and said operating costs for low cost carriers were unlikely to rise at the new airport.

The only price hike, he said, was a 15-per cent increase in landing fees, which will take effect in April 2007.

He said AOT will hold a meeting Friday with airlines to discuss the problem.

"The new airport could serve up to 45 million passengers yearly. I have not seen any reason to say that it is getting too crowded at the moment," Chotisak added.

--AFP 2006-10-18

[bkkandrew]

This so funny, I should of included it as item 5 of the minutes of the recent cabinet meeting!

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...mp;#entry945959

Gen. Somchai Magachump (Chair): "You mean that other cities have more than one airport? Why didn't we think of that?"

[Soju]

I don't see any reason not to allow the low cost carriers back in Don Muang if that's what they really want. But I do hope that it is those airlines who are expected to foot the bill for the entire airport operations that they'll be using. With the economy-of-scale at Suvarnabhumi, where many airlines share the cost of facilities and services vs. only a few airlines sharing those costs at Don Muang, I wonder if it will really be cheaper for them.

[Backpack_thailand]

Wasn't this the original idea anyway? Domestic services remaining at DM.

I know DM is getting old but it's still in very good working order and as I have mentioned in another post, a major travel hub such as BKK cannot possibly survive with just one airport!

Let's hope common sense prevails...

...T.I.T!

[cclub75]

Wasn't this the original idea anyway? Domestic services remaining at DM.

I know DM is getting old but it's still in very good working order and as I have mentioned in another post, a major travel hub such as BKK cannot possibly survive with just one airport!

Well Suva, with a low cost terminal AND a third runway, would be a very nice tool indeed.

But I agree, before that this plan is financed and completed, they could quietly keep DM. Sabai.

[Soju]

Wasn't this the original idea anyway? Domestic services remaining at DM.

I know DM is getting old but it's still in very good working order and as I have mentioned in another post, a major travel hub such as BKK cannot possibly survive with just one airport!

Let's hope common sense prevails...

...T.I.T!

Don't confuse "Domestic" with "Low Cost Carriers", as they're not the same thing. I'm all for the LCCs going to Don Muang if they want, but I'm totally against moving all domestic operations to Don Muang. I fly in on THAI and then transfer to a domestic THAI flight. I don't want to go clear across town just to transfer to my domestic flight. Very inconvenient for me. The LCCs, specifically Air Asia are already very inconvenient IMHO. The planes are almost always late, I hate the stupid boarding process, etc. So I don't fly them because convenience is important to me. If I cared more about money than convenience, I probably would fly them, and in that case transfering across town might be acceptable because money was most important to me in selecting an airline/flight. THAI domestic operations and the LCCs for the most part are servicing two different customer bases so allowing them to use different airports makes some sense. Transferring all domestic operations to Don Muang and splitting your customer base doesn't make any sense.

The original plan as I heard it was to keep Don Muang open for all domestic operations, though I think the plan was changed many times, so there may well have been one point when the LCCs were originally scheduled to remain at Don Muang.

[lannarebirth]

What took so long?

[PeaceBlondie]

I think the hard part will be to keep Don Muang 'moth-balled' so that it can be reactivated. It worked in Chicago with Midway, and in Dallas with Love Field, and many other examples, because they left the old airport as still an airport, even if it was inactive. But weren't some of those fields left vacant or barely active, for decades?